We make stingray resistant booties! Stingray stings are painful and can be dangerous, and the fear of getting stung can take the enjoyment out of the beach. We’ve mainly targeted surfers so far, but they could be useful for any beach-goer.
Definitely been dealing with the fact that “hardware is hard”. We had a design we were fairly happy with about two years ago, but have been struggling to get it manufactured since then. We’re making progress, but it’s always slow.
Steve Irwin's death[0] has never not been on my mind anytime a stingray gets near me. I'm like "hey little fella, I'm going to slowly back away to avoid both of us freaking out and one of us may end up dead."
Just for posterity: Steve Irwin’s death was really very unusual. Stingrays can be scary, but deaths directly due to stingray stings are pretty rare. Contaminated wounds are more common and can lead to serious issues, but even that is not normal. We’ve met multiple people who’ve gotten 10+ stings, but I only know one person who had serious issues due to contamination.
Is there any interest in your company on making the same thing for pets, or at least dogs? My pops takes his dog surfing most days, and there are lots and lots of urchins around. The extra safety would be nice.
We have a few ideas for follow-on products, but haven’t been able to put much time into them yet. I’ll add this to the list though, and we’ll look into it eventually!
Shaping something for the whole body would be difficult, because most puncture resistant materials aren’t very stretchy. You’d have to have the perfect shape for a specific person. It probably is possible, but likely to take a lot of work and be rather uncomfortable.
Doing some quick googling, I find sharkstop.co, which makes wetsuits to protect against shark attacks. They say the “placement of Shark Stop panels … have been strategically chosen to significantly reduce the amount of blood lost during a shark bite incident…” It sounds like they’re carefully choosing the location to make trade offs between protection and wearability, which I suspect is the right approach. We do the same thing with our booties, and only have stingray resistant material covering some percentage of the bootie.
Where does one need to live to have this problem? I’ve been to the Gulf of Mexico countless times and I’ve literally never seen a stingray. I’m guessing they’re not native there?
Definitely been dealing with the fact that “hardware is hard”. We had a design we were fairly happy with about two years ago, but have been struggling to get it manufactured since then. We’re making progress, but it’s always slow.
Our website is www.mydragonskin.com